The COMPARE Procedure

VAR Statement

Restricts the comparison of the values of variables to the ones named in the VAR statement.

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VAR variable(s);

variable(s): one or more variables that appear in the BASE= and COMPARE= data sets or only in the BASE= data set.

If you do not use the VAR statement, then PROC COMPARE compares the values of all matching variables except the ones that appear in BY and ID statements.
If a variable in the VAR statement does not exist in the COMPARE= data set, then PROC COMPARE writes a warning message to the SAS log and ignores the variable.
If a variable in the VAR statement does not exist in the BASE= data set, then PROC COMPARE stops processing and writes an error message to the SAS log.
The VAR statement restricts only the comparison of values of matching variables. PROC COMPARE still reports on the total number of matching variables and compares their attributes. However, it produces neither error nor warning messages about these variables.